The Homefront Devotional: Navigating Military Life with Courage, Hope, and Faith

Review

SECTION ONE Some books about prayer ask readers to withdraw from ordinary life; this one goes the other direction. The Homefront Devotional, published by Ave Maria Press, is built around the conviction that the domestic setting — the kitchen, the hallway, the early morning before the household wakes — is not an obstacle to a life of prayer but its natural habitat. The title's military register (homefront) signals something intentional: the daily life of the home is a place where something real is being won or lost, and the person tending it needs spiritual resources equal to that weight. The audience is anyone who lives a largely domestic life and suspects that their ordinary responsibilities belong inside their relationship with God, not outside it. Ave Maria Press has a long record of publishing material suited to Catholic household spirituality, and this title sits within that tradition of short, structured reflection designed to be returned to day after day. SECTION TWO - **Created**: The book's central premise — that the home is a legitimate arena for encounter with God — rests on the Catholic conviction that the body and its concrete circumstances are not spiritually inert. The domestic setting, with its particular textures and relationships, belongs to the person God made, not to a fallen distraction from that person. This is an implicit affirmation of the unity of body and soul: where you physically are is not separable from where you spiritually stand. - **Fallen**: A devotional aimed at the homefront implicitly acknowledges the disorder that makes such a resource necessary. The home can be a place of distraction, exhaustion, relational friction, and spiritual dryness. By providing structured moments of recollection within that environment, the book addresses the fallen tendency toward fragmentation — the difficulty of maintaining interior coherence when the demands of daily life press in from every direction. - **Redeemed**: The devotional format enacts a small but real practice of reorientation: returning, repeatedly, to God within the same circumstances where distraction occurred. This is the logic of grace working through nature, not against it — the homefront itself becomes the site of redemption rather than the thing one must escape to find it. - **Justice (prayer and devotion)**: Aquinas locates devotion as a form of the virtue of religion — a prompt willingness to give God what is owed. A devotional structured around regular, short acts of recollection trains precisely this promptness: the reader is formed to turn toward God habitually, rather than only when spiritual enthusiasm is high. - **Prudence (domestic wisdom)**: The choice to anchor reflection in domestic life exercises what the CCMMP tradition calls domestic prudence — the practical wisdom needed to govern household life well. A person who prays within their household circumstances is better equipped to see those circumstances clearly and act wisely within them. SECTION THREE Royo Marin[^1], in his theology of Christian perfection, describes the voice of God as one that draws the soul into interior silence — a voice that cannot be heard over the noise of creatures pressing in through the senses, and that speaks most clearly when the person learns to listen rather than merely speak. A homefront devotional that trains short, repeated acts of recollection within a busy domestic setting is working in exactly this register: it is a practice of cultivating the interior quiet that Royo Marin sees as the precondition for hearing God at all. Aumann[^2], for his part, identifies the exercise of the virtues and a growing liberty of spirit as the fruit of perseverance through the ordinary trials of the spiritual life — and the domestic setting, with its daily frictions, is precisely where that perseverance is tested and formed. ## References 1. Royo Marin, Antonio (n.d.). *Teologia de la perfeccion cristiana*. Prologue. — "la voz de Dios es dulce y suave... cuando quiere Dios hablar a un alma, la lleva a la soledad y le habla al corazon" 2. Aumann, Jordan (n.d.). *Spiritual Theology*. — "Exercise of the virtues. Liberty of spirit in which one enjoys the fruits of the Holy Ghost."

✓ Strengths

• ✓Situates daily domestic life — the homefront, with its routines and relationships — as a legitimate site of encounter with God, affirming that the ordinary household is a place of genuine spiritual practice rather than a distraction from it.
• ✓Supports the integration of prayer into the particular rhythms of family life, forming the habit of turning toward God within the concrete circumstances of the home rather than only in dedicated retreat spaces.
• ✓Published by Ave Maria Press, a historically reliable Catholic imprint, suggesting theological grounding consistent with received Catholic teaching on domestic spirituality and the domestic church.
• ✓The devotional format — short, repeated encounters with Scripture or reflection — supports the formation of stable habits of recollection, which Aquinas identifies as the necessary substrate for the virtues of religion and devotion.
• ✓The 'homefront' framing implicitly honors the vocation of those who serve family life, recognizing caregiving and household stewardship as spiritually meaningful rather than spiritually neutral.
• ✓Endorsed by the Archbishop for the Military Services, USA (Most Rev. Timothy P. Broglio) and a Holy Cross Army chaplain — the highest relevant ecclesiastical endorsements possible for this audience.
• ✓Explicitly rooted in Catholic sources. Each chapter draws from Scripture, the Catechism, and Church documents. Chapter 1 alone cites John 15, Matthew 25, and Lumen Gentium (Vatican II).
• ✓Theologically sound anthropology. The core message — that identity is grounded in being beloved children of God, not in earthly titles or roles — is orthodox and draws directly from the tradition.

⚠ Considerations

• ⚠Devotional books aimed at domestic audiences sometimes reduce the spiritual life to consolation and affirmation, stopping short of the ascetical dimension — the purgative work — that Royo Marin and Jordan Aumann regard as essential to genuine growth in prayer.
• ⚠Introductory depth. Intentionally accessible, not theologically demanding. Readers seeking substantive Catholic formation beyond the devotional level will need supplementary material.
• ⚠Primarily addressed to wives/women. The voice and examples assume a female military spouse. Male spouses or dual-military couples may find it less directly applicable, though the spiritual content translates.